In a distributed computing system having a content management system including a data repository, users (through client devices) establish sessions with the content management system in order to access the data repository for read and/or write operations. However, in systems where concurrent access to data resources is allowed, data errors can occur unless access by concurrent users to shared resources is controlled.
One control technique employs a reference counter which is updated every time an object type referenced or de-referenced. However, in order to update an object or object type, the reference counter must be zero. When that happens, the object is exclusively locked so that no other reads or writes can be committed to avoid concurrency errors. However, users must wait until the object is unlocked before their session can proceed.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a mechanism to allow updates to objects in a more efficient manner.